It is generally perceived that psychological stressors and our awareness of them related to financial worries, job, healthcare, and other issues, as well as broader world concerns have increased during recent decades creating more stress. These trends appear to mirror collective increases in alcohol and other substance abuses in addition to the use of prescription antidepressants, anti-anxiety agents, and pain relievers, in an attempt in part to reduce or treat the effects of these stressors.
Today, most physicians and scientists accept that psychological stressors can either cause or worsen almost all if not all physical, emotional, and mental health problems or illnesses. This occurs as a result of the impact of our negative emotional feelings (principally fear/anxiety, frustration/anger, and shame/guilt) on our physiology or pathophysiology. Furthermore, it is generally believed that the degree to which a person is able to effectively deal with or resolve psychological stressors and the resultant or associated negative emotional feeling states, correlates with their degree of life satisfaction and happiness. This in turn correlates positively with their health and well being, physically, emotionally, and mentally.
It has been shown that stress relief through relaxation exercises or meditation is beneficial to a person's physical, emotional, and mental health and well being. In addition, psychological intervention in the form of counseling and other forms of “talk therapy” has been shown to be beneficial in learning to understand the genesis of our emotional feelings and how best to resolve our negative emotional feelings.
Despite this knowledge, many people spend considerably more time watching TV, which has no redeeming health value, as compared to practicing meditation, relaxation exercises, or trying to understand and resolve their negative emotional feelings. In fact, many people use prescription medications or self-medicate themselves to avoid experiencing their feelings. Furthermore, almost everyone regularly employs psychological coping mechanisms, such as suppression of their emotional feelings and/or displacement of their feelings (blaming others, being non-accountable, etc.) in their attempts to avoid their subconscious underlying painful beliefs about themselves and their circumstances.
As a result of these practices, many people have become more disconnected from their emotional feelings and in turn have a reduced awareness of how their emotional feelings impact their physical body. Most people simply feel less, physically and emotionally. Consciously feeling “more” physically is paramount to learning how to become more physically relaxed by increasing our awareness of how we feel. It is our own biofeedback mechanism that informs us about how well we are handling the effects of stress and how relaxed we are. In addition, feeling “more” emotionally helps us to consciously confront and cease avoiding our persistent problems/issues that continue to impact our health and well being in a negative fashion even when we are not consciously aware of it.
Exposure to sound and vibration occurs when watching and listening to TV, a movie, playing video games or listening to music. When a person participates in such activities, very little of the sound energy and vibration impacts their physical body directly or is transmitted into their body and therefore there is little tactile stimulation. When the participant receives more tactile stimulation there is a greater likelihood that they will become more attentive to their body and the stimulus that is inducing the sound and vibration. Therefore, during TV viewing and/or listening to music or a soundtrack and playing video games another sensory modality (touch) can be stimulated in the participant thereby enhancing the experience. Video gaming is further enhanced using this invention as tactile cueing provides additional information. This affords the user a faster response time as vibratory stimuli can trigger a very fast reflex arc.
Movie theaters typically use high volume sound sources to partially create such an effect. Oftentimes the sound will exceed a safe sound level of 85 decibels (OSHA 3074). Moviegoers therefore may experience harmful effects related to their hearing. People however, frequently enjoy the movie theater experience in part because the higher volume of sound creates more physical and emotional feeling through sound and vibration, which enhances alertness and attentiveness. The higher level of alertness and attentiveness causes the moviegoer to become more engaged in the movie and when the moviegoer leaves the theater, he or she is often aware of a heightened state of arousal and awareness.
However, not all people prefer to experience sound at the same volume level. Some people prefer lower volume, while others prefer higher volume. When more than one person is watching and listening to TV or a movie or listening to music there is often disagreement as to how loud the volume should be in the shared environment. Consequently, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus which enables a person to experience the sound without the need to either raise or lower the audible volume level of the sound.